LepreKhaun

Welcome to LSL Scripting, the forum used to "Discuss scripting tips and techniques with other inworld developers.' If you have a specific question or have encountered a problem with a script you are writing, this is definitely the right forum to come to. However, since you are not writing a script and have no intention of ever learning, may I suggest the Wanted or Inworld Employment forums to seek the help you require in meeting your needs.

Rahkis Andel wrote: It may be a newly introduced bug/feature. I've never had much use for baking out everything at once, so I never noticed full render including AO. You really want to have all the control available to you -- to fine tune the AO effect. Realize that AO is an ambient lighting trick and therefore is supposed to be applied to the ambient lighting, which we have no control of in Second Life. It's just cheaty-fakery (Of the best kind) and as for all crafty tricks, they have to be used with care. I'd just assume not worry about it. PS: AO usually looks okay so long as it isn't applied to something that has to move (Such as an avatar). On buildings, it tends to not matter so much, but still more control is always better. I agree that AO does fall under "cheaty-fakery" but until we get materials with normal maps in SL it can be used to simplify geometry in architectural builds ( see for how an arched window opening could be retopoed effectively with AO) and, used judiciously, .is almost a necessity with clothing. Also, it might be pointed out to the reader that the settings for the initial AO bake are controlled in the (unintuitive) World -> Gather settings. Tweaking the various settings there will benefit the final result.

Defining the railing as you did will work but it is necessary to have the angled Ramp where the steps are in your physical model: From Aquila's excellent illustration: If you're lacking that, your stairs would appear phantom.

I've just used Gimp to combine my UVW-mapped AO and diffuse textures. I believe the whole purpose of baking an ambient occlusion map is to then combine it with the original diffuse texture in an external, 2d image editor, using the control you have there with layers and filters. Then, the blended images are brought back to be applied to the model for a better sense of depth. There may be a way to control the blending of the two with nodes, but I've just started to get into that. I'm certain one of the resident experts can tell how that is done.

No need to worry about talking to yourself unless you start answering... ... and it happens to be in a public forum. Seriously, If you've goofed your outfit up, just contact the creator and I'm sure they'll help you sort it out. OK?

If you lack explicit permission from the owner of the copyright for something you're thinking about, you should seek the advice of a lawyer. If you ever do stand before a judge, saying you were acting on the advice from an internet forum will not help much...

If you really want to help newbies you might consider joining NCI ( http://www.nci-sl.info/blog/ ). They are always in need of volunteers and remains one of the most used and popular newbie friendly groups. And if they saw your videos as a helpful resource, they might even help drive traffic to your channel.

There are a number of inworld groups that not only give building classes but have many residents willing to help the beginner get up to speed. My recommendation along that line would be the Builders Brewery ( http://www.buildersbrewery.com/ ). They not only have regular (free!) classes for everyone from the complete novice to advanced but a very active chat with knowledgeable people on it 24/7 for immediate help with your "question of the moment".

Ark Vuckovic wrote: Hello, I am trying to make a house base with the stairs attached in Blender, as you see on the snapshot. After I uploaded it to SL I discovered that I can't walk on the stairs up. I applied physics to the mesh and set it to prim. The physics is a separate prim with simplified shape it has a ramp in place of steps. But when I start to walk, the mesh prim acts as a phantom object. Instead of walking up the stairs I walk right inside of the prim. I tried to use the same mesh for physics, but the result is the same. Any suggestions how to make it work? Are you using Analyze and Simplify on your physical model when you're uploading your own dae file for it? SL may optimize key elements of your model away when you do that.

Glad to hear it! If any other problems or questions come up, feel welcome to ask here. You're certain to get a variety of solutions.

Melita Magic wrote: ... Thoughts, everyone? ahhh, a metasurvey it is then!

If you're looking for someone to write a script for you, please use the Wanted or Inworld Employment forums. This forum is used to "Discuss scripting tips and techniques with other inworld developers."

Drongle McMahon wrote: This is very confusing. As far as I was aware, the server should have no effect on the preview because the server doesn't get any information about the mesh until you click the Calculate button! How can it be influencing a process it doesn't even know is happening? The knowledge base usually differentiates between what happens in the viewer and server side. And where http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/Uploading-a-mesh-model/ta-p/974185 says "Levels of detail determine what your model looks like from various distances. As you get farther away from a model, it renders in less detail to boost visual performance. Second Life generates these lower detail models by default, but you may use this step to tweak each level or even upload your own lower detail models. You can preview your model at any level of detail by clicking High, Medium, Low, or Lowest." (my underlining added) could imply this is a server side operation.

Gadget Portal wrote: ... By the way, I have many of those games. I run them on the highest possible settings. The pictures don't do them justice, they look better than that. We can only hope that someday SL uses the same kinds of graphics engines, same levels of anti-aliasing, and DirectX support that these games do. And of these games, how many are free? Remember, Second Life doesn't cost a single penny to participate in.

Rahkis Andel wrote: Great! It is usually the simple things that get us. Isn't that the truth! It's like the legendary TV troubleshooting and repair manual that started with "1.) Make sure television is plugged in." Adding that to my checklist for when I start disabling rendering of specific objects in my scenes along with a well-deserved kudo.

After modelling, texturing and UVW mapping, be certain you do each of these steps: In the "Properties" panel click the "Render" button (the camera'icon). Scroll down to the "Bake" subsection and click the triangle to expand the available options. Click the "Bake Mode:" drop-down menu and select "Ambient Occlusion" from the list. Then select "Normalized" and ensure "Clear" is active.. Finally, click the large "Bake" button at the top of the sub-section to render the image. Progress indication of the bake will differ depending on whether you are in Object or Edit mode but the result will be the same. Once baking is finished, in the "UV/Image Editor" click "Image*",, name the file, select a location to save, select a 'loss-less' image format (TGA, TIF, etc.), select "Relative Path" if required and then "Save As Image." [Excerpted from http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/character-5-texture-baking.php which showed me what I had overlooked when I was learning this]

It's a text file. Notepad should open it with no problem.

Have you checked your Second Life Log, specifically the areas beginning with "Collada Importer Version:" and following? It may contain some information on what specific aspect of the import or parsing process is failing or may point to a difference in behavior when it is successful. Mine is found at C:\Users\myLoginName\AppData\Roaming\SecondLife\logs\SecondLife.log on Windows7 and yours will be named the same, though possibly in a different directory.

I've had my FS Build->Options->Select only Movable Objects checked so long I'd forgotten that.

Right click to open the edit menu, open the Object tab and check the Locked option. Until you later uncheck that option, you will not be able to modify or delete the object.

Block and Ignore are the default actions in a menu. If you don't wish to block a dialogue with a task, do not click the Block button.

SL does not support rtl languages, sorry. See https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-24783 and http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Bug_triage/2007-07-27/Transcript (VWR-112) for details. [ETA} Ask in http://community.secondlife.com/t5/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%86%D8%AA%D8%AF%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A/bd-p/arabic_forum for a possible solution to this.

Since you are seeking free end user support, it might help if you posted copies of the notecard that is giving you the error and the one that is performing correctly. That way, noone would have to try to guess what you're doing wrong using third person trial and error.

I wouldn't concentrate too much on compacting and saving bytes unless you're getting a memory error Your first priority is to get a working script, one that does what you intend it to do. Your second and third priorities (which are nearly as important as the first) is to have the code readable and maintainable. Once you get to that point you can start considering ways to make the code more efficient. I agree with Qie that there is something other than efficiency that is causing dropped events. Perhaps your event queue is overflowing where they are being silently dropped or maybe the conditionals within the event simply aren't being met at times and it appears it wasn't triggered. Figuring why that misbehavior is happening and correcting it should be you main concern right now. Trying for code efficiency now will only delay solving that issue.

That's excellent advice. Though the script may work now, at some time in the future the OP may decide to use a timer in the default state. In that case, the timing clock would trigger it every 15 seconds until it was reset, possibly leading to some late night head scratching. Keeping Murphy's Law in mind, it is a Very Good Practice™ to always reset the timing clock to 0.0 as soon as one doesn't need it anymore to avoid that.